Modality-independent reduction mechanisms of primary sensory evoked fields in a one-back task

Attentional modulation of early, primary sensory components is still a topic of debate, as studies have produced conflicting results concerning the existence of a modulation within the primary somatosensory cortex and its direction. We previously showed that attention to tactile stimuli in a stream with visual stimuli leads to a reduction of primary somatosensory components when discrimination of different stimulus locations is requested. The question arises whether this effect is universal and independent from the distracting or attended modality. To test this, we compared the magnitude of primary somatosensory evoked fields (somatosensory P50m) in a one-back task after tactile finger stimulation during attention to tactile stimuli vs. auditory distraction in 28 volunteers. In comparison to acoustic distraction, we found a significantly decreased primary somatosensory activity when attending to tactile stimuli. Strikingly, similar results were produced within the auditory modality: when attention was focused on acoustic targets, primary auditory (auditory P50m) fields were lower as compared to the situation when attention was directed to the tactile stimulation. Our results clearly indicate that the type of task, independent from the modality, is actually the crucial factor for the direction of modulation of early sensory components by attention. Therefore, our finding of reduced primary sensory components in a discrimination task represents a universal effect independent from the distracting or attended modality.